Springtime
by padfoot's prose
Summary: There is mystery hiding the attic of Teddy's house.


**Written for the Bloodbath round of alyssialui's The Hogwarts Games challenge. The prompt was: an old grey coat.**

* * *

 **Springtime**

 _by padfoot_

...

There is a mystery hiding the attic of Teddy's home.

He first realises it when he's four, as he stands at the bottom of the ladder watching the soles of his granny's feet as she goes up into the darkness. It takes almost an hour before she comes down again. Teddy has lined up all his toys to keep watch in the meantime, and he gives them a stern lecture to make sure they catch his granny in their soft arms if they think they might see her falling.

His curiosity is piqued when he's six, asking questions about his family by the night time glow of the fire. His granny lets out a sigh and goes up into the attic again. This time she's only gone for a moment, and she brings back a photograph in a frame: black and white and old and peeling, showing a pretty woman with Teddy's large eyes, and a tall man with his nose. His other grandparents.

Teddy stands at the bottom of the ladder sometimes and looks up into the darkness, wondering what sort of secrets lie in wait up there. His granny never tells him that he's not allowed, but he gets a sense that she doesn't want him going into the attic. Like there's a monster up there that she can't help him fight, or a disease that she doesn't want him to catch. She sometimes really does look ill when she returns from the attic, eyes red and downcast.

"I think we should go up there," Victoire says, one day when she's visiting.

She's seven years old, precocious and mischievous, a far worse influence on Teddy than he's ever been on her. He's usually quiet and shy, but when Victoire comes over they get up to all sorts of trouble. Somehow, Teddy always ends up taking the blame.

Teddy frowns at Victoire – didn't he _just_ tell her that the attic makes his granny sick? – but she ignores him and puts two hands on the ladder, already starting to climb up.

"Don't go by yourself!" he almost screeches, terrified for a moment for the safety of his friend.

Victoire urgently shushes him, giving him a grumpy glare.

"Then you'll have to come with me," she tells him, and steps back down and to the side, leaving the ladder free for Teddy to climb up.

His heart is still hammering from the moment of horror when Victoire had started up into the darkness, but Teddy doesn't want to look like a chicken. This is Victoire's usual way of making him obey her plans – she knows he hates to seem like a coward. Teddy knows that she knows, but it still works every time.

"Fine then. But you have to promise to come up right behind me."

"I promise," Victoire chirps immediately, and then she pushes Teddy hard towards the ladder, and he has no choice but to start climbing up it.

Victoire is hot on his hells when Teddy reaches the attic, pulling himself up the last few rungs to sit on the floor. It's less dark up there than he'd expected, with a soft peachy glow coming in through the roof. Everything is warm and soft up here – the musty old carpet, the foamy insulation on the walls, the piles of old clothes and worn cardboard boxes – and it disappoints Teddy a little, because it's so hard to believe that this place could be hiding any sinister secrets.

When Victoire emerges, she looks around too, wide-eyed and curious. Teddy stays sitting in his spot at the top of the ladder, poised to escape back down at the first sign of danger. Victoire, like always, is braver, crawling around on the floor to peer into boxes and lift up blankets. She pulls out a dusty book and shuffles back over to Teddy, holding it out.

"What does it say?" she asks, because Teddy's a much better reader than her.

He is reluctant to take it, still wary that this place has some mysterious force to make his granny ill, but Victoire is looking at him expectantly and he has never been good at resisting her requests.

The title is in gold, but the writing is cursive and curly, and Teddy can't make out the words. He flips it open to the first page, and there is nothing but yellow paper and a name scrawled in the top corner. _Nymphadora Tonks_. Only the 'Nymphadora' is crossed out, just leaving the word 'Tonks'. Teddy's hands shake, and he hands the book back to Victoire.

"What's it say?" she asks again.

"It was my mum's," Teddy mutters, and for a moment Victoire is caught off guard.

She drops the book as it its stung her, and it thumps loudly against the carpet. Both of them are silent for a long moment as they listen for footsteps from the adults downstairs. There was never a rules saying that they weren't allowed to go up to the attic, but now more than ever Teddy gets a sense that this isn't allowed, that doing something bad.

The air in the attic feels hot now, too hot, and it smells cloyingly sweet. Teddy's heart is beating hard, his skin crawling with a sort of sick feeling that he's touched something dead, as if the book itself is a corpse and by touching it he's somehow touched his mother's dead body. He wants to go down from the attic, but Victoire is blocking the way and she doesn't seem to feel sick like he does, just sad and sort of manic, her eyes gleaming, too bright.

When Victoire finally speaks again, her voice is a whisper, "Do you think all this stuff was your mum's?"

The thought makes Teddy double over, clutching his stomach. But his face comes close to the carpet and the smell of it is awful and he wants to leave, he so wants to go, but Victoire is still right there in his way, looking at him as if surprised by his weakness. Disappointed by it.

"Come on Teddy, tell me," she pushes. "Was all this stuff your mum's?"

Teddy shakes his head, feels bile rising in his throat, lets out a pitiful moan, and avoids Victoire's eyes. The worlds seems to be shaking, like an earthquake going on. He shuts his eyes and moans again, but the shaking doesn't stop.

Victoire lets out a huff and Teddy can hear her scamper away. He wants to use the chance to go back down into the house. But everything is too hard with the ground shaking so much, and he can't make himself move. He can't make him confess to his granny that he snuck up here and can't let himself be hugged in her arms, safe and tight. He wants to be surrounded by her smell and her warmth, by the fact that she is alive and not cold and dusty and dead like everything in the attic, but he can't do it, he can't move, he thinks he might die up here and that only make shim panic more.

Suddenly Victoire is back again, and Teddy numbly notices that she's beside him now, pulling something heavy around his shoulders. She is much smaller than he is – all delicate limbs and dainty fingers, to go with her sweet, innocent face and silver blonde curls – so it takes her a minute to get the coat around his shoulders.

"It's okay, Teddy," she murmurs as she does it, "it's all right. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Don't worry, Teddy. It's okay."

The combination of Victoire's gentle string of words and the comfortable weight of the coat around Teddy's shoulder helps him to calm down. Slowly the world seems to stop shaking, and Teddy realises with a dull sense of shock that it wasn't the world shaking, it was him. This attic really does make people sick.

Eventually, Teddy forces his eyes open, and Victoire is there right in front of him, biting her lip, her eyes nervous, almost scared, as she fusses with the collar of the coat around Teddy's neck. She gives a little gasp of relief when she sees Teddy's eyes, and without thinking she throws her arms around him, hugging him tight. It almost feels as good as one of his granny's hugs, Teddy thinks, but he makes sure not to tell Victoire that.

"I'm so sorry," Victoire whispers, when she's let go of Teddy and is kneeling in front of him.

She definitely looks sorry, her whole body sort of drooping, and fingers nervously clasped in her lap. Teddy wants to tell her that it's all right, but it isn't. So he stays quiet instead. Victoire notices his silence, and it makes her looks away, biting her lips hard to hold in her tears. She hates disappointing people, hates being in trouble. She's never been in trouble with Teddy before.

Teddy looks away, grabs onto the sides of the coat to pull it more tightly around himself. The material is old, but still tough, and it doesn't smell musty like the rest of the attic. It smells somehow comforting, and without thinking much of it, Teddy pulls the coat still tighter, burrowing himself in the fabric, in the soft scent of freshness: of night time air and rose-scented perfume, and the faint, indefinable smell of life and laughter and happiness.

"It smells like my mother," Teddy murmurs, in a tone of revelation.

Victoire looks up at him, and Teddy notices that her eyes red. She wasn't able to hold back her tears after all.

"What?"

"You were right. It's my mother's coat."

Some of that curiosity is back in Victoire's eyes, but it's not manic like before, rather a little reserved and nervous. She bites her lip before quietly saying, "How do you know?"

Instead of answering, Teddy gestures for Victoire to come closer, and she carefully moves towards him, settling by his side. Teddy opens up his arms to make room for Victoire inside the coat, and she shuffles over until their shoulders are pressed together. It's almost too hot with the two of them crowded inside the coat, but this time it's hot like a hearth, like freshly baked cake, like sunlight on the porch after a long, snowy winter.

Without having to be told, Victoire snuffles into the coat as well, breathing deeply and laughing a little, pulling it in closer and tighter around herself.

"She smells like springtime," Victoire whispers, with such a smile in her voice that it makes Teddy smile too, and pull the coat up to sniff at it again.

"I can almost remember," he says, beaming now, so deliriously happy that he's dizzy with it, drunk with it. He closes his eyes, feeling just the edge of memory, not all of it, but just enough. "She kissed me once and she smelled like this."

Beside him, Victoire smiles and snuggles in closer to his side.

"You smell like springtime, too," she says.

But Teddy's eyes are still closed, lost in memory, and he doesn't respond.


End file.
